PSU Magazine Spring 2003

pitcher's so tall , the crow can't crane his beak down to the liquid. He tries tipping over the pitcher, even consid– ers breaking it, but he's not strong enough to do either. He's at the end of his proverbial rope. Suddenly, a light bulb goes off. The crow starts dropping small pebbles, one by one, into the pitcher. The water level rises. He drinks. In Aesop's eyes, the story illustrates that necessity is the mother of inven– tion. Or, perhaps not as catchy, but more apt to the business world of 2003, as Short writes: "Organizations must learn innovative ways if they are to survive the ever-changing environ– ments of today. " Which brings us to Rubbermaid. "Rubbermaid," notes Short, "has made an explicit goal that 30 percent of their sales will come from products that were not in existence five years ago. " You might say, they've made inven– tion a necessity. Which is sort of how it all got started for Short. "I wanted to find a way to take what could be boring material and entertain myself and the students," says Short. "And I'm not funny enough to do stand-up comedy. " if hrough the years, he had noticed others using alle– gories to explain business principles. A 1996 article in Strategic Management journal used Lewis Carrolls Through the Looking Glass (a.ka . Alice in Wonderland). When Alice encounters the Red Queen playing chess with real-life characters, Alice notices that the chessboard itself is in motion. Even though Alice is run– ning, she appears stationary. The Red Queen explains that in a fast world , one must run just to stay still. Or, as business minds immediately grasped, the example applies beautifully to today's "hyper-competitive business landscape. " With the tradition of literary anal– ogy established in the business world, Short decided to teach students about modern business principles using the tools of an ancient Greek fabulist. However, theres a little problem concerning whether Aesop ever existed. Some evidence suggests that a slave named Aesop lived in ancient Greece about 620 B.C. to 560 B.C. Aesop is said to have earned his freedom and moved to Athens, which was ruled by a free-speech-hating tyrant. The former slave criticized rulers of the day in fables: brief allegorical stories that illustrate a moral or satirize human behavior. Animals are typically the main characters-animals that act surprisingly human. For his cleverness, Aesop is said to have been thrown to his death. If he ever lived. s till , regardless of whether the man ever lived, the fables associated with his name most certainly do. Although the 200 or so fables ascribed to Aesop were not written down until after his death, they've since been used to teach grammar and morals in ancient Greece, the Roman empire, Europe in the Middle Ages, and now to PSU business students. Last year, Short presented a paper on using Aesop to illustrate strategic management principles to an interna– tional audience at the Educational Innovation in Economics and Business Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico. Short and graduate student Nanette Reid wrote the paper with support from Portland State's Scholarship of Teaching Resource Team, which helps faculty and graduate students develop research skills to conduct scholarship not traditionally related to their discipline. Short and Reid took the four basic concepts he teaches in strategic management-strategy, leadership and organization, the environment, and performance-and found fables to illustrate each. "The Donkey and the Grasshopper," for example, is an alle– gory for "resource-based management," a component of business strategy. A donkey loves the sound of grasshoppers chirping. The equine asks the insects what they eat that enables them to sing so sweetly. "Nothing but morning dew, " reply the hoppers, whereupon the donkey switches to the "magic elixir" and quickly starves to death. Aesops point 7 One man's meat is another man's poison. Or, as Short noticed, it's a classic illustration of the pitfalls of believing you can buy (or merge) your way to success. To explain: if you look at a company as nothing more than a bun– dle of resources , you should be able to buy (or merge with) any resource the big guys have and be just as successful as they are. In other words , if you drink morning dew you should be able to sing as sweetly as the biggest, baddest grasshopper in your field. But a company is more than the sum of its resources. Its how those resources work together that make a company unique. As the donkey dis– covered, it won't do you any good to hire away your competitors brightest employees if your work environment is significantly different-think of basket– ball great Michael Jordan playing this year for the Washington Wizards. Without his Chicago Bulls teammates, Jordan isn't racking up the wins like he used to. Aesop is perhaps the best-known writer of fables , but fable date back into antiquity. In Mesopotamia, "beast tales" were popular. Fables are found in ancient Hindu texts. And the writ– ing of fables continues in modern times-James Thurber and George Orwell among others wrote fables. ff oday, whether Aesop ever lived or not, his fables con– tinue to play the role they have for more than 2,000 years. After all, who hasn't heard the story of the tortoise and the hare7 Or heard: "honesty is the best policy," "actions speak louder than words ," and "don't cry wolf'7 And now Short's taken these ancient wisdoms to a new frontier-business. You might say the moral of his tale is, as he says, "People aren't going to remember a long list of boring facts. But they will remember a story. " D (Melissa Steineger, a Portland freelance write,; wrote the article "The Accidental Writer" for the winter 2003 PSU Magazine.) SPRING 2003 PSU MAGAZINE 17